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A friend came by with a pot of iced tea. Another came by with a chow mein lunch. All brought hugs and favorite memories.

On the front porch of Debra Sullivan's Columbia City home Monday, a small group of family and friends remembered the things they loved about her son, Aaron.

Since he was killed Wednesday night, the emotions have come in blocks, she said. Early Monday afternoon, there was a good one.

But that vanished a short time later when word came that his suspected killer, Tristan Appleberry, 19, was charged with second-degree murder -- not first-degree murder, which shows a killer had premeditation and potentially carries a heavier sentence.

Sullivan briefly shook her head: "That's an injustice."

Dispute in Leschi

Police say 17-year-old Aaron Sullivan was with a group of friends at Leschi Park last week. One of the friends allegedly had a dispute with one of Appleberry's associates. When the friend arrived, the associate left, police said.

Sullivan, driving his girlfriend and another friend, waited for a short time near Appleberry's mother's house in the 700 block of 32nd Avenue South, according to court documents. Appleberry approached with a SKS 7.62 caliber rifle, racked the slide back and fired once, police say.

The shot shattered the Chevy Caprice's back window and struck Sullivan. He died at the scene.

A witness said Appleberry's mother watched the incident and then refused to recount for police what she had witnessed, according to court documents. Believing Appleberry was inside, SWAT members tried to negotiate with him for more than four hours.

Police said he was eventually captured after fleeing to his girlfriend's house in West Seattle. Appleberry told the girl the gun misfired and he didn't mean to shoot, according to court documents.

Authorities have not said how long Appleberry possessed the gun, but his mother allegedly told police there were other rifles in the house. She is not facing charges in the incident.

The second-degree murder charge is based on what investigators know so far, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.

"It's ongoing, and certainly we would look at any new information that comes up," he said.

Debra Sullivan, a black woman, questioned why the picture of her son's killer, a white teen from Leschi, hasn't been shown on local television news. Friends questioned if the case had been downplayed -- by the media and authorities -- because of the race issue, as opposed to the recent South Park case, in which a black man killed a white woman.

She worries people will rush to judge her son.

"No one's going to say my son's half-white," she said. "He'll just be that black kid.

"People need to know my son."

A creative youth

The middle child with a younger sister and older brother, Sullivan loved to construct things. Not just building projects, his mother said -- anything.

With family in Redondo, he'd dig up clams and make a meal with garlic and onions. He'd bake muffins, though he might not have had the patience to read a cookbook.

When his fifth-grade class at St. Therese School, which he attended through eighth grade, studied aviation, he went to neighbors near their Capitol Hill home asking for old electronics. His goal was to construct an airplane cockpit.

At 14, Sullivan decided he'd eventually get a motorcycle. "Just prepare yourself now," he told his mom, who smiled with the recollection. When he got a car, Sullivan reminded her he hadn't given up on the idea.

His dad shared his love of camping. When Sullivan suggested weekend trips, they'd put a clean pair of underwear in one back pocket, a toothbrush in the other and be out the door, said Debra Sullivan, who received her doctorate in educational leadership from Seattle University.

They loved Mount Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula. Anderson Pass in Jefferson County was another favorite place. When Sullivan's dad, Scott Patrick Sullivan, died from multiple sclerosis in January 2005, he and other family members spread his ashes there. Earlier, Aaron also spread his grandfather's ashes at Anderson Pass.

Sullivan didn't like taking posed pictures, which is why the last one he took was in eighth grade. Taken shortly after his father's death, it doesn't show the smile he had months before.

Sullivan wanted to try public school and went to four schools after eighth grade, his last being Nova Alternative School. He was displeased with the teaching styles at public schools compared to how teachers cared at St. Therese, his mother said.

He was an average student who felt it was more important to construct things than sit and learn things, family said. He'd been in some trouble before.

But to say his father's death was a reason for some difficulties wouldn't be right, Debra Sullivan said. And "that shooting had nothing to do with that."

She hadn't heard of Appleberry before. An hour before the shooting, Debra Sullivan ran into her son and his girlfriend near 31st Avenue South and South Lane Street. His mother said she was making fish; Sullivan asked that it be cooked dry, the way he liked it.

Monday, she had to call and cancel his cell phone. Porter worried about his girlfriend of a few weeks, who had the bloody aftermath unfold before her.

"I am thankful he went quickly," Debra Sullivan said.

The family plans to spread his ashes at Anderson Pass, a place shared with his father and grandfather.